The FIRST ever BLOG SNOB AWARD!

Well, my last blog entry was inspiring... for me at least. There was a comment left by a girl named Carrie. Who is Carrie you ask? Honestly, I had no idea. My wife later let on that it is one of her friends. This is how I found out.

Me: Hey some random chick left a comment on my blog. That's cool. I have no idea who she is.

Her: Some random chick?

Me: Yeah some girl named Carrie. She lives in Utah. I guess she has a blog of her own I'm looking at the pictures right now.

Her: WHAT?!? Some strange woman is sending you pictures over the Internet? Nobody leaves a message on MY man's blog like that. Let me see a picture of that ..... [tearing the laptop from my hands examining the picture] Oh, that's just my friend Carrie from back home!

Ok, ok... maybe that was a little over dramatized. It was more like:

Me: Who the heck is Carrie Burt?

Her: That's my friend from back home!

See TOTALLY boring. So I went with the other version.

Anyway. I decided to check out her blog and was reading a post about how she just joined the Air force. BUT there was something in this blog that caught my eye. It was this sentence:

"Just think about all the awesome blogs I'm going to get to write! All of my decisions in life are based on whether it would make a good blog or not."

Now THAT is gratuitous blogging and an embodiment of everything that a Blog Snob is. So in Carrie's honor I developed an official Blog Snob Award. She is the first recipient of this high honor. Go check out her Blog.... She has absolutely no shame. I love it :D.

http://ceeburt.blogspot.com/

Look for future Blog Snob awards. Maybe your blog will earn one some day and you can post the award on your blog with pride. I will be awarding them every...... Every time I feel like it of course!

~-=**`~... BLOG WARS ~-=**`~...

You've waited a long time for it and now it's here.... It's not just any blog... It's the blog about...



It's like the first day of school. You know when you had just been back to school shopping the week before and you wanted to wear the very best outfit you picked up. You wanted to do this because everybody was going to judge you on how great your summer was and how cool you would be in the year to come by what you had on. You probably spent hours setting out clothes on the bed, wiping invisible spots from your new shoes, and wishing that you had an extra set of legs so that you could wear the acid wash 501's and your Bugle Boy jeans. Now don't go projecting on me! It's not like I ever did any of these things. I was too cool to care.

What's like dressing for the first day of school? Blogs of course! It's BLOG WARS out there and everybody must bring their A-game. Otherwise what will people really think of your family reunion at Aunt Millie's Ferret Farm or your new backyard landscaping or little Bobby's first poopy diaper or the time your husband took the trash out and forgot to put the lid on. People have to know these things because they need to know how cool you are! You are cool.... right?

One of my favorite possessions in the world is our digital SLR camera. Why? Because even though I stink at photography, the camera makes me look like a pro. Sometimes people will look at one of my photos and say, "Jason, I love the way that you captured the light and motion in this picture." I say, "Yes, I'm glad you noticed and the details of the shot weren't wasted on you." But what I mean is, "I tripped over the curb behind me as I was clicking the picture and I got lucky." Anyway... get a digital SLR, very forgiving and a huge ego boost. But the reason I bring up the camera is that I was shooting some pictures of my daughters and a lady came up to me and asked about the camera. She said it was just what she needed. Oh yeah? Why? Well because she is tired of reading her friends blogs and seeing their perfect Kiddy Kandid's quality photographs while she had something more along the lines of camera phone pictures on hers. I asked what will happen once she gets some better pictures on her blog. She looked at me and said, "Well then I.... um... i...." and walked away.


I knew just what she meant though. For example you may have noticed that your pictures come out looking like this:



But your friend's blog has the same picture but it looks like this:





POP QUIZ: Who's the better Mom?


Well if you said the mom who took the first picture you're dead wrong. I mean how can you life be anything short of perfect if whenever you take pictures of you sweet little angels, the contrast and color balance are perfect, the shadows are properly adjusted and hearts spontaneously pop onto the exposure. Better mom, better kids, better life.


Or how about this:


Dearest Blog Readers:


Today I was reflecting on what a marvelous little child I have. Rilee is so in touch with nature and all of God's beautiful creations. She loves to play in rolling fields all day because the weather is always perfect where we live. Just look at our perfect princess! I'm just sorry you all don't have one half as good as she is. See? This typical photograph of her says it all:





NOW LETS BE HONEST. This is a picture I snapped of Rilee pooping her pants in a field in the middle of the country in North Carolina. But I'd never put that in a blog.... That would be like wearing the old gray Fila sweat pants with the black Atlanta Hawks sweatshirt and beige dress socks I have on to my first day of school.

Good luck soldiers. May the 'farce' be with you.

The wave of the Future; The Future is Blogs; The Future is NOW!

Do you remember when you were in grade school? They would hand our those "Reader Rick" or some other little pamphlet to stimulate a 1st graders interest in reading? I remember those because every once in a while they would publish some article about the future. Apparently in the year 2000 we were supposed to have automatic pilot cars that if the traffic on the road got too bad could launch into the air and fly you the rest of the way to work. I recently watched Back to the Future II and according to that movie, in the year 2015 most cars would be flying, clothes would adjust themselves to fit us, and people could get robotic implants to become super strong. Granted, for them 2015 was about 30 years in the future how could they possibly know what to expect? For us however, it is only 8 years away and the bigger concern than getting your car off of the ground is affording gas to put in the car.

I guess my point is that the future wound up being something that nobody expected. The 4th of July weekend really drove (yes drove in a hovercar) that home to me.

I was attending a close friend's wedding reception back home in Corvallis. It was a beautiful event held in their yard on an even more beautiful summer evening. Picture round white tables on deep green grass, badminton, croquet, trampolines, large shade trees, a jungle gym covered with children while some smooth music played in the background. There were dozens of people with or without shoes, socializing, eating, and laughing. Sometimes there was a handshake exchanged at an introduction or an embrace shared at a reunion. Who would have thought that the future would look so organic as this? No streets paved in corrugated metal or flying commuter vehicles in sight.

However, the 21st century had it's fingerprints all over this gathering. Let me illustrate by sharing a conversation I heard more than twice that night:

Person A: Hi I'm A I'm so glad to finally meet you.

Person B: Oh A! I'm B! It's good to meet you too! I feel like we've know each other for so long.

Person A: How are your little girls? They are SO adorable!

Person B: Oh did you see them running around here? They weren't pouring lemonade in each other's hair again were they?

Person A: OH you brought your girls along? I haven't seen them here.

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? Why are two people who are literally meeting for the first time, not being introduced by a common acquaintance, chatting like old friends? Keep eavesdropping. You'll find out what the future has done.

Person B: You haven't seen them running around? They're always getting into some sort of trouble.

Person A: I know I read about your family every week on your Blog.

LADIES and GENTLEMEN.... the future.

It was amazing to see a gathering of so many people who had never met yet were so intimately informed on each other's lives, families, and ideas. It was fascinating! Then the conversation would morph into discussing another person at the party who neither A or B had met in person.
It was a startling web of connectivity that has never existed in the history of the world.

I'm impressed at how many people read THIS Blog. I intended this place as more of a journal that I don't mind others reading but I have never really advertised it. I've never e-mailed anyone and said, "Check out whats going on in my life! Hear my thoughts and ideas". Yet here you are. Occasionally I will include it in my profile on some online account and then there is the link to my family's Blog. It was shocking the first time I saw a comment posted.

I'll be honest, sometimes it freaks me out. I used to think it was a bad idea being so informed on everythign that was going on in a distant friends life because what would you talk about when you got back together? But it has actually had the opposite effect. Or I could say that it has the opposite affect. It is kind of nice to still feel connected to so many friends even if it is from an altitude of 30,000 feet. I have to admit, my wife does most of the blog reading for our family. Several hours a week in fact. But I get to hear all of the highlights!

So I'm curious (as a result) how many of you are there? If you have a Blog would you post the URL in a comment on this message?

Ok this sucker is way too long now. I'll add more later. I originally intended to write about what I call "Blog Wars" or "Blog Snobs" but I waxed all philosophical about the invisible threads that BLAH BLAH BLAH.